The Cheim Manuscript (The Shell Scott Mysteries)

by Richard S. Prather

  I don’t get it.

  Not much, you don’t. No matter whether you waited in the gas station after you saw me roll by, or headed up Cypress getting ready to pick up Burper — according to plan, a Burper with gut at ease, soothed by his successful chilling of Shell Scott — heres what you heard: One big blast from a .45, then four quick ones from a smaller piece, and a few seconds later one more shot from the smaller gun.

  I paused. Luddy didn’t say anything. But I noticed he was picking nervously at the skin of one index finger with his thumbnail. I went on, There’s not any doubt that you can tell the difference between the sound of a .45-caliber automatic and a .38-caliber revolver, Luddy. That means you knew all five of those last shots were from my little Colt. Or, stated differently, Burper was dead, and Shell Scott wasn’t. Not only was your dear friend alive, but he’d killed McGee and knew a sweetheart named Clarence Ludlow was not far away. So you — wisely — decided to split.

  Luddy merely kept a vapid look on his face. But he seemed not quite so full of jolly good humor as he had a minute before.

  Luddy, I said, half smiling at him, right after I pumped those five into Burper I ran to the street — just as you were going by in Kiffers heap. With Kiffer. I saw Kiffer falling forward in the front seat, probably unconscious. And I saw you at the wheel, pally.

  Not when it was so dark — He didn’t goof, not really. That instinct or long-exercised slyness saved him again. Without even a split-second break he went on, You couldn’t see me is what Id say if Id been out there, wherever you’re supposed to of been at. Where, of course, I wasn’t at.

  It was the only slip, or near slip, he made, and we kept it going for another three or four minutes.

  Come on, Scott, he said finally, you’re makin it all up, aint you?

  It is sheer coincidence, I presume, that you, Luddy — it is reliably reported — yesterday, or at least this past Sunday, took three near-lethal shots at Kiffer, employing for this frivolity a sawed-off elephant gun.

  Reported? Who? Whos reliable? You been talkin to Putrid Stanley, aint you?

  Putrid?

  Yeah, him. You cant believe a word he says. He’d rather lie than breathe. In fack, he cant breathe without lyin. That’s one of the reasons its so hard for him to breathe at all. Anything he tells you, take the exack opposite and you got it nailed down.

  I shook my head. It wasn’t Putrid. Luddy, why don’t you simply admit you clunked Mac on his noodle and then eased him out the door of the heap while traveling on Cypress Road at approximately ninety-nine miles an hour?

  Who, me? You’re nuts, Scott. Like I already said, I was strollin along, takin my constipational . . .

  I quit.

  In about another minute his attorney showed up. At least, one of the attorneys on Lashs payroll showed up. Samson and I left the interrogation room while the lawyer was still talking to Rawlins and Lloyd, and Luddy.

  Back in Sams office we sat and looked at each other for a while.

  Then he said, We haven’t even got proof he stole the car.

  I wonder, I said, if he’s as dumb as I think he is.

  Sure he is, said Samson. You’re just dumber.

  OK. But did you guys get any more out of him than I did?

  We got less.

  Sam and I jawed a little longer. Wed been talking about Lash and his hoods, including Vic Pine, then I got on the subject of Wilfred Jellicoe, mentioning again that I knew he’d blackmailed Sylvia Ardent but wasn’t sure of any other victims he might have approached.

  Although, I added, covering an item about which Id already briefed Samson, somebodys putting the big bite on Gideon Cheim, who is about to tear out several internal stitches. So, considering the timing, either its Jellicoe — and I could hardly blame him after the life I imagine he led working for that old tyrant — or my client is due for some bad news, since — Whats the matter?

  Samson had suddenly reached for the phone and was calling the Auto Theft Division down the hall. In a moment he said, Andy? Send in that report on the stolen Rolls-Royce, will you? One that mentions Victor Pine. Yeah, right away, thanks.

  As he hung up I said, Don’t tell me Vic is going in for car heists. And did I hear you say a Rolls?

  Sam nodded. Silver Shadow, twenty thousand bucks worth. Whod steal a Silver Shadow? But Pines got nothing to do with it. Its just your mentioning this busty TV gal again — whats her name?

  Sylvia Ardent?

  Yeah, her. It rang a bell.

  When the typed report came in Samson ran a finger down the page. Yeah, here it is. He read a few lines silently, then leaned back in his chair.

  Somebody stole a Rolls in Beverly Hills a few hours ago, from a pretty important citizen, so the Beverly Hills police were all over the place. Team in one of their cars stopped a man walking along Tanglewood Lane at eleven-twenty-two p.m. You know how they are in the Hills. . . .

  Yeah, they picked me up twice.

  Sam lifted his still unlighted cigar from an ashtray, stuck it into his chops and spoke around it. Far as Pine goes, he’s clean. But Captain Slattery over there knows were interested in any of Lashs associates, which Pine sure as hell is, so he called us about it.

  Tanglewood Lane? I said. I was getting a funny feeling, Sam nodded and I asked him, What was Vic doing out there?

  When the officers stopped him, he wasn’t doing anything, just getting into a car. New white Cadillac, I think — not a Rolls, anyhow.

  Isn’t Tanglewood the road that goes past Indian Ranch?

  Right. The Cadillac was parked a couple blocks from there. Pine identified himself, proved the car was his own, and when asked why he was in that area said he’d been visiting a girl at Indian Ranch. Reason he’d parked where he did, he played around with a couple other gals who lived at the Ranch, and didn’t want them to see his car. Made sense, I guess.

  And the girl he’d been visiting? Don’t tell me. . . .

  You got it. He’d been with this Sylvia Ardent.

  I stared at the wall beyond Sam, thinking.

  With her from around nine p.m. till just before the officers stopped him — say, till eleven-fifteen or so. Nothing suspicious, no reason to hold him, so they let him go on his way. Little later they did check with this Ardent woman, and she said he was with her, all right. Samson took the cigar from his mouth. So that’s all there is to it, but I thought youd be interested.

  Yeah, I am. I kept staring at the wall.

  Then I asked Sam if I could use his phone, and called Zena Taburs number. After ten rings I hung up and got slowly to my feet. So far it was just a hunch, combined with a vague uneasiness, so I didn’t explain to Sam.

  Something I’ve got to check, I told him. Anything turns up, I’ll let you know. Unless you’re home in bed.

  He bit down on his cigar again. Looks like I’ll be here another hour or two at least. Maybe the night.

  He lit his cigar. But this time it was all right with me. I was ready to leave.

  And I was in a hurry.

  15

  By 2 a.m. I was talking to the pleasant clerk at the registration desk in the main building of Indian Ranch. He was a slim and erect guy about sixty years old, with a very handsome head of wavy gray hair.

  I asked him, Is a Wilfred Jellicoe registered here?

  No, sir. But if youd like for me to check the registration cards —

  I interrupted. No, I’m almost certain he wouldn’t be using his own name. I put my two very dissimilar photos of Wilfred on the desk. That’s the man I’m looking for. If he registered here, it would have been Friday or over this past weekend. Possibly yesterday, Monday, but probably Friday night.

  The clerk looked at the photos for several seconds. Then he picked up the shot of Jellicoe disporting himself joyously with Sylvia Ardent and studied it. I’m not really sure, sir, he said. But the gentleman I have in mind looked much more like the one in this picture. Dressed quite . . . well, almost gaudily, wearing a rather shocking ascot and large dark gla
sses. Looked . . . quite a rare bird, if you don’t mind my saying so.

  I don’t mind.

  I really cant say its the same man. Let me think. Friday night . . . Excuse me one moment, please.

  He consulted a file of registration cards, selected one. Yes, I thought so. Friday night. But this gentleman was, or at least registered as, Mr. Gordon W. Mannering. You see?

  He turned the card around so I could read it. I didn’t know what Jellicoe’s handwriting looked like, but whoever Mannering was, he’d been given the Iroquois Lodge.

  Would you do me a favor, I asked the clerk, and go with me to Mr. Mannerings lodge — and bring a key to it? This is extremely important or I wouldn’t ask it of you.

  He considered the question at some length. Now, that’s odd, he said at one point,

  Whats odd?

  He shook his head. Never mind. I was merely thinking aloud. Yes, I’ll be glad to accompany you, sir.

  The clerk got a ring of keys from beneath the desk, and I followed him, over the thick and spongy gold carpet, out through the swinging glass doors and along the lushly planted entrance walk. It was a little cooler now, the coolness that doesnt chill but merely nips the cheeks, not unpleasantly.

  We turned left, followed a winding path for fifty yards, passing two other cottages or lodges before reaching the Iroquois Lodge. In those fifty yards I caught the scents, either clear and distinct or mingled with others, of gardenias, orange blossoms, spicy carnations and jasmine, natures incense delicate in the cool night air.

  The Iroquois Lodge was dark. The clerk pressed the little arrowhead that rang chimes inside the suite. We waited. Then I said, Excuse me, stepped to the door and banged on it hard enough to awaken anybody sleeping inside. It made almost enough noise to awaken heavy sleepers in the adjacent lodges, but here nothing stirred.

  It would seem Mr. Mannering is not in, the clerk said.

  So it would seem. But I think we should make certain. That’s why I asked you to bring the key.

  He hesitated.

  I said quietly, I think wed better go in and take a look, and perhaps there was something about the way I said it, or else the dignified clerk had merely made up his mind. He inserted a key into the lock, opened the door and we went in.

  He switched on the light and we blinked in the sudden brightness. The living room was similar to the one in Sylvia Ardents suite, except for the arrangement of furniture and a different color scheme. The room was neat and clean. But there was a barely noticeable smell of sourness in the air.

  This time I walked ahead of the clerk, to the bedroom, found the light switch myself and flipped it on.

  And there he was.

  It didn’t surprise me. Perhaps there should have been some sense of mild shock, at least one small pulse of energy rippling through my nervous system. There was, strangely, nothing, no real emotion at that moment. None except perhaps a sense of sadness, and a quite natural revulsion.

  I simply looked at Wilfred Jellicoe, for the first time in my life, at Wilfred Jellicoe dead, revoltingly dead, and said quietly, Your Mr. Mannering is really Mr. Jellicoe, sir. This is the man I was looking for.

  Behind me the clerk, just entering the room, sucked in his breath sharply, the sound almost a squeak, and said, Oh, my God, my God. Oh, my God, my God.

  Then silence, from both of us.

  Jellicoe was seated in a pale-gray overstuffed chair. I walked over and stood next to his body. His hands were bound behind him. An electrical cord was wound around his chest, then carried behind the chair and firmly knotted, the wire holding him into the chair. His body was slumped and his head hung limply near his right shoulder, his face visible.

  He had been badly beaten. A wadded cloth, wet and stained, lay on the carpet near his feet, which were clad in brand-new alligator shoes. The cloth had undoubtedly been used as a gag, and Jellicoe had obviously vomited at some time during the beating. The wet stickiness smeared his chin and part of his shirt and trousers, flecked the new shoes. There was a cut over his left eye, from which blood had dripped down over his cheekbone and nearly to the side of his chin, and his lips were puffed, one of them split.

  He was wearing a loose V-necked white silk shirt and trousers of a shade, midway between pale green and yellow, and there were several smudges of blood on the shirt. I imagined most of the blows had been hammered into his body, at the stomach, solar plexus, over the heart. I felt for the pulse in his throat, but it was just habit. There was no doubt that Wilfred Jefferson Jellicoe was dead.

  But he hadnt been dead very long. The sour stains on his shirt, even one thick clot of blood, were still moist and sticky when I touched my fingers to them. And that almost total absence of emotion in me started changing right then, at the moment when I touched Wilfreds cold, sticky blood.

  While the clerk stood mute and staring, I went quickly through the suite, looking for a box, a package, a metal case. I was reasonably thorough, but I spent little time on the job because I hadnt expected to find anything and didn’t.

  I asked the clerk to leave the door unlocked, then we walked back to the hotel. In the lobby the clerk said, Wed better call the police.

  Of course. First, I hope youll answer a question or two for me. I showed him my pocket card as evidence that I was a private detective, licensed by the State of California. Then I said, Did Mr. Jellicoe, calling himself Gordon Mannering, of course, have any kind of box or package — I indicated its approximate size with my hands — in his possession so far as you know? Probably it would have been in his luggage. But there’s a chance he left it in the hotel safe —

  The clerk interrupted me, showing some slight excitement. That’s what I was thinking of when we first spoke, Mr. Scott. When I commented that something was odd, strange. I didn’t know, then, that you were a licensed investigator.

  What was so odd?

  Mr. Mannering — I mean, the gentleman who called himself Mr. Mannering — did leave such a package in the safe.

  Is it there now?

  No, that’s the odd thing. That you should ask about Mr. — about him so soon after another gentleman brought me a note from Mr. Mannering. At least, it was signed by Mr. Mannering.

  What did the note say?

  It was an instruction to give the package he’d checked to the bearer of the note. And it was signed by Mr. Mannering; I took care to compare the signatures. And the gentleman also had the numbered check, which we always issue to guests who leave valuables in our safe. I was rather busy at the time, I admit, but I had no idea, I sincerely —

  Don’t blame yourself. You couldn’t have known what was going on. Then you did give this guy the package?

  Yes, sir.

  I asked him to describe the package. It was heavy, he told me, covered by white paper like that used by butchers for wrapping meat, twelve to fourteen inches long, perhaps ten inches wide and six inches deep.

  It was, undoubtedly, Cheims original metal case. Almost surely with all that it had originally contained, too. I said, Didn’t you check with this Mannering before giving the other man the package?

  No, I — You see, I was on duty myself when he registered Friday night, when he checked the package. He said he would either pick it up himself or, possibly, send someone else for it, with a note from him.

  That puzzled me for a moment. But only for a moment.

  Id begun to understand that, while Jellicoe might not have known he’d bitten off more than he could chew, he surely realized he’d taken a big bite. And, looking ahead, he might also have realized it could become necessary for him to leave Indian Ranch, hide out somewhere else for a while. Probably he thought he was being very clever, preparing for any eventuality. But Wilfred had simply been clear the hell out of his league from the beginning.

  Almost surely he had never before been worked over by an expert, been made to feel real, excruciating, sickening pain. Maybe Gordon W. Mannering had even thought he could stand such a beating — if it came to that — and keep his mout
h shut. It was an awful way to find out he’d been wrong.

  I said, Do you still have the note?

  Why, I — I don’t believe so. I cant recall. As I mentioned, it just happened I was then very busy.

  Tell me about the man. You ever see him before?

  No, but he — I really cant remember him well. The clerk pressed his fingertips to his temples, closing his eyes. He seemed in almost physical pain. A large group, guests, were leaving. It was — oh — eleven to eleven-fifteen, Id say, only about three hours ago. These guests were all going to a party somewhere. Theyd just been in the bar and were leaving keys with me, asking me to put notes in other guests boxes, laughing and — Well, you know how it is when a group has been drinking for some time. It was during this period that the gentleman gave me the note and the check, and took the package.

  Can you describe him?

  I think he was wearing a dark suit, black probably. He was wearing a hat. And . . . I’m sorry, that’s all I can remember.

  As tall as I am? Taller, shorter? Heavier, slimmer?

  I don’t believe he was as tall as you, no. And its my impression he was a bit less . . . heavy, perhaps weighed less. Its all . . . very vague.

  I described Victor Pine in fairly complete detail. Could that have been the man?

  Truly, I cant say. I suppose it could have been. I simply — Its all so blurred, with the number of guests milling about. I’m really terribly sorry. . . .

  Its OK. You’ve been very helpful. Youd better call the police yourself — its all right to tell them about me. I paused. There a pay phone here I can use?

  There was, just off the lobby in a hallway. I called the LA Police Building and once again talked to Samson. I told him where I was, what had happened, and that the desk clerk here was already notifying the Beverly Hills police.

  But I wanted to give you this bit myself, Sam. For one thing, I may not be here when the police arrive. And also, as I’m sure I neednt tell you, so you can check that report on Pine again. I paused. By the way, what about Luddy?